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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27408193">The Dark Passage</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesonparade/pseuds/Wolvesonparade'>Wolvesonparade</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Knives Out (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Murder, Boundary problems, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Feelings, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Mild Blood, Multi, Neglect, No one has good boundaries, Non-Consensual Touching, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Esteem Issues, Substance Abuse, Terrible Parents, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking, Verbal Abuse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:00:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,460</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27408193</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesonparade/pseuds/Wolvesonparade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason why Ransom hates Walt, and it's not just because he's an ass and raising a fascist. Families like the Thrombey's have more skeletons in their closets than fashion brands and Ransom knows most of them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ransom Drysdale/Original Female Character(s), Ransom Drysdale/Surprise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. I Don't Want To Be Who I Was</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>First time writing for the Knives Out fandom, what a joy! I haven't written fanfic in many moons, but I'm glad to be back and working on something. I also make no promises as to updates since due to COVID I am working numerous odd jobs and moving in an effort to get to a better place in my life.</p><p>I hope this start is enjoyable and leaves you wanting more!</p><p>Safety and Peace y'all.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Ransom had a lot of reasons for at least fifty percent of the bullshit he pulled - the other half is just because he can. ‘Cause he’s an asshole. Only not the asshole everyone thinks he is, a different kind of asshole that also kept his wounds to himself and picked at them so they never healed.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Like Walter. Fucking Walt is the bane of Ransom’s existence for all of the reasons.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Once upon a time there was a boy named Hugh, and Walt the cool older uncle with a degree in American Crime Fiction and who snuck Hugh a cigarette or two when Linda wasn’t looking. Gave him beer and whiskey at family parties and a couple times he got to smoke a joint and be a free bird in Walt’s slick downtown studio. Hugh would listen enraptured as Walt would tell stories about college, and most especially college girls, and Hugh’s eyes would get wide and his mouth would part, and Walt would grin and take another swig of his pretentious bottled IPA and laugh at Hugh’s wonder. Walt told Hugh how to talk to girls, told him that his poor grades would get better as he got older and that he had nothing to worry about. Hugh’s a Thrombey, in blood if not in name, and they had ink in their veins and pens in their fingers whether they liked it or not. Walt often patted his shoulder when he showed him the papers with misspelled words, shaky writing, and waved it off as Hugh being a slow starter. Hugh told him about Richard’s cruel words when he would see his grades and how Linda would come in afterwards, the “good” cop, and inquire if Hugh thought he needed tutors or if this was just laziness. When you have a mother that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars and a father that did nothing but schmooze, a kid felt like they needed to pull their own weight.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">That’s what Hugh did: he didn’t tell Linda that words danced in front of his eyes, no matter how hard he looked and tried and no matter what the doctor and nurse said. Clearly this problem was something that Hugh just needed to grow out of, like Walt would always tell him. Sometimes Walt would even help with his homework when he would come over to stay with Hugh instead of attending another social event with other family members. But sometimes, sometimes Walt complained about Grandpa and said he needed to be careful around him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“He knows what he’s doing, mark my words. He’s done it to all of us, of course. Linda and Neil though,” Walt scoffed and took another drink of whatever was in his glass this evening. The TV had on some sitcom, though Hugh didn’t really pay attention to it other than to be annoyed by the audience laughter. It just seemed too… manic?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Why would Grandpa give Mom and Uncle Neil money and not you?” Hugh asked.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Walt chuckled, drank, then replied, “Because I’m not the favorite. You’re lucky, you’re the only one, you don’t have others to compete with! God,” He snickered under his breath as he finished the drink in hand. “If you had a sibling, not even an older one, you would be fucked kid.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Sometimes, Hugh really didn’t like it when Walt drank. Not even drinking with him would make those times better.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">A knock on the door brought Ransom out of the depths of old injuries and made him glance at the front door and see Marta’s car. The only thing he could think of that would cause her to be here, he didn’t want to think about. Because it was impossible. His eyes narrowed, brows furrowing, and he wondered if he should even bother answering. She knocked again, a lot firmer and longer than the first, and he scowled at the noise. If it weren’t for all of his work last night, and all of the anger that he’d been burning through in the wee hours, he could’ve been asleep by now. Marta had no business being here and he would make it very fucking clear to her where she stood with him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom stalked to the door and whipped it open, hoping he scared the absolute piss out of her. The ends of her hair got pulled forward by the force he used and Marta’s hand hovered as if to knock again. It gave him grim satisfaction to have put a halt to that as well as to loom in the doorway like the intimidating asshole he is. He knew how he looked right now: sweat still drying all over his body from the workout minutes earlier and in just his compression shorts, no shirt, hair not at all neat but dark with sweat and sliding into his face. Practically naked, but he kept himself sculpted and despite a lot of his other problems, modesty and body shame were not exactly on the list.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He could also see that this tactic did have a desired effect - Marta dropped her hand and jaw at the same time and took a half step back. Shock? Fear? Dismay? Attraction? He braced his arm against the doorframe and cocked his hips, knowing that would draw her gaze there. Predictably, she did glance at his lower body and he was pleased to note a faint blush across her cheeks that hadn’t been there earlier. The noticing made him smile under the stone facade and feel a bit better despite the situation.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“What do you want?” He demanded.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">She blinked a few times and closed her mouth, visibly gathering herself back to whatever it was she intended to do here. He had to give her credit for the spunk she showed at odd times, and this was the boldest move of hers to date.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“I know what you tried to do.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He raised a brow and waited for her to elaborate.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Your attempt on Harlan’s life.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">His other brow lifted and he snorted at her statement.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“That sounds a lot like libel to me, but I’m not a lawyer. I’d be careful what you say, I might be tempted to call mine.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“You don’t even bother to deny it?” Her face had flushed even darker, and he knew she was started to get mad if she hadn’t been already.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Deny what? You’re trespassing, have made a serious claim against my character, and now you’re….” He waved in her direction, one lazy sweep of his arm, and then pushed off the door frame. “Well, I don’t know what the purpose of this visit is other than to try to disrupt my day. So far you’ve only disrupted my workout.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">She huffed and pulled her coat closed as she crossed her arms over her chest.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“You have no idea what you nearly did, do you?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">At this point, the brisk morning air had cooled him off enough that he started to become cold and goosebumps raced across his skin. The sweat had dried as well and he felt sticky, and he knew that his hair looked ridiculous matted to his skull. Time to wrap it up.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Listen -“</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Marta straightened as if someone put a finger up her ass and the flush on her face remained, but her eyes were suddenly cold. He didn’t know brown eyes could get so cold and dark.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Harlan only cut you off because he loves you, you selfish prick!”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">She turned and stomped to her little car and he finally saw her strength. Her hair whipped around her head with the jerking of her body as she opened her door and got into the driver seat. It took a couple of tries for the engine to turn over and start, but once it did she backed out of the space and spewed dirt and gravel as she drove off.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He went inside and closed the door then went upstairs to his room. He took off his compression shorts and threw them towards the hamper on the way to the bathroom. The bathroom is his second favorite place in the house with the soft blue tones in the silvers and creamy white of the tiles and marble. The tiled shower had multiple heads and he loved to stand under the fall and feel warmed from the outside in, which he wanted to do right this second. He started the water to get it warmed up and glanced in the mirror.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">When Hugh began to hate Walt was actually a slow climb; the jokes became hurtful, then turned to straight insults as he moved schools again and again. Suddenly, Hugh realized hanging out with Walt wasn’t fun anymore, just something he did because he let him get high and drink and smoke and that felt better than getting detention and doing remedial school work. And anything felt better than Linda’s disapproving looks and Richard’s condescending remarks.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">But Hugh didn’t <em>really</em> hate Walt until he tried to make a man out of a lost boy. Walt had just been hired on to Harlan’s publishing company, which Walt complained about but also needed desperately, and he decided to have a party. The studio apartment had been filled with Walt’s friends and Hugh ended up attending because he had nothing better to do. Drinks were overflowing in the kitchen, empties and half filled cups sat on flat surfaces while women and men danced and carried on. Hugh saw people on the deck smoking, snorting, and feeling each other up. He recognized some of the people there, and a few of them even recognized him back and would laugh and say hello to him. However, Walt was <em>not</em> one of those people, he was pissed to see Hugh and grabbed his shoulder and whispered harshly to him about being where he didn’t belong. At this point Hugh finally knew where exactly he stood with Walter, and would have happily left right then and there. But Walt wasn’t done with him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“If you think you’re old enough, then you’re old enough. Let’s go.” The invite left spittle in his ear and on his cheek, and he knew there would be no leaving until Walt was done with him. He followed the lead of the drag on his shoulder as Walt took him towards the blocked off bedroom area.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Shelves, with the books and knick knacks facing out towards the rest of the apartment, kept the bedroom area fairly private and Walt shoved him in first. Lying on the bed were three women, all of them in the process of being undressed, with a couple of Walt’s guy friends standing to the side and egging them on. Hugh could tell every one of them were either high or drunk to the gills and he felt the pit of his stomach fall out like Linda was about to tell him he’d flunked another class and would need to do more summer school. The girls noticed them pretty quickly, but the guys just waved and continued to coo at the girls to take it all off and show them the money.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Time to make your parents proud, dummy.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Walt laughed, shoved Hugh on the bed, and made himself comfortable in the doorway.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He remembers the laughter and the soft hands of the girls, and Walt and his friends would occasionally throw beer or liquor onto their bodies and yell at Hugh to clean them up. They tried to make him do some lines off their tits but he was terrified of what would happen and refused. He was called <em>pussy </em>so much until he bit one of those tits and then started to fuck one of the girls. What did he know at fourteen though? His erection wasn’t even close to full-sized at this age, he barely had the beginnings of musculature, and had been stretched out by his growth spurt. The girls laughed, Walt and his friends laughed, and Hugh was so damn mad. His blood fizzled and he knew his fair skin, completely on display at this point as they were all naked now and on the bed, but the girls liked him and whispered sweet things to him. He finished inside her, very quickly, but had sweat dripping down his body like he ran a marathon.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Up to that point, as ashamed and angry as he remembers being, that wasn’t the worst. Hugh turned to Walt, to say something and he didn’t even know what, and Walt… Fucking Walt was still mostly dressed and smoking a cigar, smirking at the bed, and Hugh <em>knew </em>that Walt didn’t care and was still laughing at him. So he stood on the bed, dick still wet from cum and vaginal juices, the rest of him shining with sweat and flushed, he jumped towards Walt and knocked him through the doorway and into the party. They rolled into and through partiers, people laughed and screamed, Hugh got in a few shots and so did Walt, but they got pulled apart. Walt screamed at Hugh, Hugh screamed back, he ended up with a couple of serious burns on his chest from the cigar and Walt got a split lip and lump on his head.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Someone sent him home, called for a cab, and Hugh changed the address to Harlan’s. He didn’t want to see Linda and Dick, didn’t want to hear about how much of a failure he was and how no one liked him except for the money his family had. While his grandfather was very busy, he usually had a few minutes for Hugh and often could make him feel better. Maybe he could even get a good nights sleep before having to deal with his parents.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">When the cab pulled up to the house, all the lights were on, and Linda stood out front.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?” She immediately began to berate and inspect him as Dick came out of the house and paid the driver.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Walt had called ahead and gotten the drop on Hugh. No one wanted to hear what he said as it always was, just lit into him about his behavior. He crashed Walt’s party, fucked a twenty two year old, fought his uncle <em>naked</em> and generally made a scene of himself.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Looking in the mirror, he saw the cigar scars interrupting his chest hair and decided he would go back to shaving his chest for a while.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Drag The Lake</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in my corner of the world; all I will do is have a quiet meal with my fur kids and roommate and we will each say some things we are thankful about. I will then call my friends and family, thank them for things they've done for me through the year, etc. And as is also traditional I've donated food and money for those who haven't been as fortunate. This is my Thanksgiving - not all the white washed stories I was told in school. Momma raised me better than that.</p><p>I hope you enjoy the read, and if you have a sec, share this with some friends yeah?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">While eating at his coffee table, Ransom wondered where he went wrong. Not in the existential sense of course, he tried not to think about that sort of thing as best he could, but more in the realistic ‘how could he fuck up killing his own grandfather’? The best part about simple plans is that they’re fool-proof and he isn’t a fool. So, where did it go wrong? The only unknown factor is Marta, he barely knew much about her because he only spoke to her in passing. Something about her, besides the whole lying/puking thing she had going on, caused her to… notice? To notice that the drugs were in the wrong bottles. Grandfather wrote so many books, what was it that might have caused her to notice such a tiny thing?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He finished his meal, the vegetable and cheese omelette with a piece of toast and coffee sitting well despite the events earlier. The dishes he put in his sink to be handled by the maid that would come later. He pulled his coat and scarf on, then went to his car in the garage. He got in, then just sat for a moment. Looking down at the keys in his hand, he remembered the time they’d been stolen from his jacket while at a bar and he noticed as soon as he went to put it on. When a person uses the same thing over and over it just becomes familiar, common, but the sudden absence is jarring and throws a person off.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">What if… what if something like that had happened last night with Marta? What if when she picked up the bottles, something about them told her they were wrong? Maybe there was some sort of weight difference that he just didn’t notice because he never picked those bottles up and didn’t have the experience to begin to try. And if that, or something like it, had been what tipped her off, how could he have planned for that? Really, he couldn’t have unless he specifically asked a nurse about this exact kind of situation.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Fuck,” he whispered to his hands, and gently lay his head on the steering wheel.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Hugh stopped struggling after the party - he decided to be ruthless just like Walt always complained about. Cheating came to him easier than breathing and with all the spare time he now had, he could party with the other trust fund babies. Coke and Oxy was fun, until Linda found out and sent him to a super exclusive, super private rehabilitation facility. Only his stubbornness kept him from giving up the other guys, not that it mattered. After rehab, which he told Linda wasn’t necessary because he could quit whenever he wanted but it was just so much <em>fun</em>, he finished off high school with private tutors. They gave him a name for his problem with words and letters, gave him skills and coping mechanisms for it, but in the end he just felt broken.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">College had been a joke. The only reason anyone wanted to take him had to do with the zeros the Thrombey’s could add to a check. Linda would have done it, Dick lamented that he never got into sports because he could have gotten a free ride and saved them the money. He didn’t fool Hugh; the real reason was always that Dick was ashamed of his only child and wanted someone else. They had nothing in common - even as a child Hugh could barely converse with Dick because the man rarely had the time or patience what with one thing or another. Club parties, Linda’s company events, family events, anywhere he could be seen and heard. A stupid antisocial kid had none of the attributes he wanted, and it was as if Hugh disappeared from Dick’s concern as soon as those facts were clear to him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Hugh turned to Harlan, his nepotistic grandfather that hired Walt and gave Uncle Neil and Linda money to start their careers. He even made the effort to turn himself out real nice, dress shirt and blazer, comb his hair neatly, and made sure to only have a single line and a shot of bourbon instead of his usual morning perk up.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He was on his second Mustang (this one a sleek black with white racing stripes) and drove it like a bat out of hell, which is how he destroyed the first one. However, he still wanted to make a good impression in all ways so he slowed on the approach to the mansion gates instead of pulling a <em>Dukes of Hazzard</em> and spraying gravel and dirt everywhere. His parking job kept up the neatness, and he rang the bell politely instead of barging in. The maid opened the door and her eyes widened seeing who it was and probably shock that he bothered ringing. She gathered herself quickly though and waved him in and hustled to let lead him the few feet to the study. She knocked on the open door and announced him to which Harlan absently motioned him in with his first two fingers and then pointed to the chairs in front of the desk.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">One of the things he really didn’t like about Harlan is how he treated his family like a business meeting. Hugh remembered when Harlan would play Go with him, and he even learned how to beat the older man, and at times Harlan would ask his opinion about a part of his book, whether a detail made sense or what should this character look like. Those moments used to shine like gold for Hugh, until Harlan suddenly had little time for him. A brush off here, avoidance there, only seeing him in a group.</p><p class="p1">Hugh knew this was his shot, his chance, to really show Harlan how hard he could work for him and show him that the brain in his skull functioned, just not in the way that everyone else’s did. So he stared at the man as he finished writing notes, signing some documents, and Hugh was pretty sure he even made up a task or two to make him wait longer. Totally fine, he could show patience.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Time wore on, sweat dripped down his neck and the side of his face. He could feel the sweat pooling in his underarms and lower back, making him glad for the suit jacket covering these spots. Fingers played with the ends of the tie, tucking it in and untucking, then rolling up, rubbing his belt buckle and following the silver to the leather of his belt, feeling the chair shift under him as he adjusted his weight but not to the point that they would creak.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Harlan looked up and Hugh just knew this was not going to go his way.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The sweat dripped, his fingers stilled, and Harlan quietly told him how disappointed he’s been in his grandson. The grades were just the tip of the iceberg, leading down to the drugs, alcohol, parties, pictures in the local paper about his car wreck, the disaster with Walt, it went on and on and Harlan’s face… Hugh remembered that face being like a Greek statue, vaguely stern, cold, eyes on the distance and no personality. Harlan said he would support Linda in whatever decision she made, but that he would not directly support Hugh until he got his act together.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">When he stood up after the dressing down, it was like all the blood in his body rushed out through his feet and ice replaced the now empty veins and arteries of his body. He thanked Harlan for letting him know how far he’d fallen, even shook his hand but couldn’t feel the skin, just the solid bones underneath. His footsteps were sharp, precise, just like the rest of his motions out of the front door and into his car.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom looked up at the gates as he revved the engine and grinned. They wanted a shit show? He was gonna be the best damn shit show that a fuckin’ Thrombey could be. When he drove back through the gates he knew exactly what he was going to do next.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">It’s what he wanted to do now, but he couldn’t, he’d been sober for a few years and knew where that road led. Instead he opened the garage door and turned the key, listening to the rumble of the engine and then seeing the sunlight slide up the front-end and into the windshield. Pulling out slowly, the startling beauty of the day surprised him. Why did days like this exist when guys like him fell back into the shit?</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He drove the back roads, cruising easy as pie, letting the evergreens and empty trees roll past and the blue sky backdrop it all. Past all of that in this very state existed his only living (and most of his dead) relatives and the one woman that stalled what little certainty that kept him afloat in life. The money didn’t matter so much, he knew how to survive now, but the name and the prestige, those were what he <em>needed</em>. No one liked or cared all that much for him, and he could live with that, but he couldn’t live with the loneliness when everyone would abandon him after he had nothing left for them to take.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom expected to feel some sort of heaviness in his body due to the failure of his plan. Instead, he felt light, untethered, like he could float through and out of the car and watch it swerve into a tree while he floated up and away into the clouds. Clouds and sky didn’t have feelings and he would be just fine with joining them and not having feelings either.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Blinking snapped the road and terrain back into focus - trees and bark shone like diamonds with the remains of the morning fog drifting off and the road only a slightly darker grey. He’d taken his foot off the gas and rolled to a stop at a diagonal in the road. If someone took these curves as he would at times, probability could make a statistic out of him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Fuck.” Ransom spat into the cab, getting the car into the correct lane and trying to ignore the sudden clammy sweat in the middle of his back and trickling down his neck.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The aimless driving left him and he adjusted his route back home. He needed to study up on his adversary and completely redo his strategy. Whatever fantastical spell the flora exhibited existed to him no longer and became a blur outside his windows as he focused on the return travels. Once home, he doubled up on the stairs to his office and dug for file after file of information that practically jumped in his lap after the judicious use of a credit card. Reading over his surprisingly legal gains he could easily see the angles at work here and how he could possibly tweak some things to get back into Harlan’s good graces. This would have to be a long game as he could do nothing that would be a quick fix for his situation. But maybe, just maybe, he could make some slow moves in the right direction starting now.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom made sure to save the documents in a folder labelled “Aunt M” amongst all the other folders of information he kept on his family. He knew all too well it wasn’t about what was done, but what you could prove.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Next up came his social media presence - he would really fucking enjoy this. Ransom <em>hated </em>Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, all of it; he only used them to farm information and build his circles. Everything he posted anywhere he had to meticulously go over and plan for the effects that he wanted to create. Otherwise, chaos generally ensued and he would be left with weeks of damage control and the inevitable calls from Linda and maybe even a text from Dick.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The current rewards to reap included a few nudes from Insta-whores that were uninspiring at best, invites to business openings and parties, Jacob’s continued fascist rants (seriously, Nazi, anyone?), and Meg’s recap of the previous evening. Interestingly enough, she also said Joni had been worrying ever since the party and when asked if the tuition issue had been resolved had avoided the question and disappeared to her meditation room. Meg didn’t put it together that Harlan had started to close up shop which made Ransom wonder if a conversation happened between Harlan and one of the parents. What could his grandfather have to say to them? To his knowledge, Harlan supported neither of them though Linda of course supported Dick, and she’d long ago paid off the ‘loan’ from dear old Dad. Walt’s whole career came from Harlan; Ransom remembered the struggles to find and keep a job in the publishing sphere for many reasons. Most of those struggles involved girls and drink, the things he really wanted to make a career on. Wouldn’t be surprising if Walt got a rude surprise of his own that night.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">On his desk sat very few things, some of his favorite sitting in an off-white pencil cup. He kept a few different kinds of pens to play with or scribble absently on the notepad to his right, which already had half-formed thoughts and abstract designs scratched in. He picked one up and twirled it between his fingers, thinking about Harlan clearing out the rotten fruit still hanging onto the tree. It made a tragic kind of sense that he would turn off the funding and find out the true character of his family.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>What did that make him? What the fuck did it say about Hugh Ransom Drysdale that his first instinct was to kill his cold-hearted bastard of a grandfather and boo-hoo with everyone else at the funeral? Good godDAMN why did it all make a sick kind of sense?</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">A dark cobalt pen travelled around knuckles and phalanges with ease as he handled the now-warmed metal. His eyes stared unseeingly out the windows of the second floor, ignorant to the views again. The only outward sign of his considerations appeared in twitches of his brow and eye.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>So much shit we put each other through, we’re all assholes, and all of it has reached Harlan in one way or another. He’s not stupid, he puts too much thought into his stories. So if he’s finally removing the leeches… what’s the endgame?</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom sat in his office chair, occasionally swiveling in increments or remaining still except for his fingers, at times getting up to pace the width and breadth of the room. In the end, really, it bothered him the most that Marta only really knew that they were all assholes and Ransom is the one willing to murder. That made her either entirely too brave or much dumber than anyone would have guessed.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He tossed the pen on his desk and noted that the sun was already way too low in the sky. The maid had come and gone while he chased his own tail in the office and worried at each thought like tasty bones. Prepped meals sat in his fridge but didn’t appeal. Neither did the thought of going out. Eating in general, as a matter of fact. Instead, he went to his room and stripped, pulling on his compression shorts and heading for the house gym. Once the speaker in there turned on it automatically connected to his phone and he turned on the Spotify List he sardonically named “Uncle.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>Marta, how do you fit into this? What is Harlan up to?</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Lift weights. Set them down. Lift again, down again. Jump and grab bar. Pull chin parallel to bar. Lower body down. Raise legs to 90 degree angle, lower.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>Walter, did you get what you deserve?</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Survivor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Notice that the tags have been updated please. If you have any concerns, I've briefly explained the new tags for triggers at the end of the chapter without spoiling the chapter. If for some reason you need anything further before reading, feel free to reach out.</p><p>Have a delightful upcoming week readers!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Facebook - “A few things have been made very clear to me in recent days. Going radio silent, for real.”</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">Instagram - Black backdrop with white text, 16 point Times New Roman font, “Vanity, thy name is Ransom”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Snapchat - Clear picture of his desk with his closed MacBook, partially full pencil cup, shiny gold pyramid paperweight, and a closed notebook arranged neatly on the surface. The text, placed above his desk, “I need to refocus my energy”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Twitter - “A few things have been made very clear to me in recent days. Going radio silent, for real.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">LinkedIn - Resume updated as of 6:42 PM, yesterday.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He sat back and let the expected deluge of responses flow. Snapchats would be ignored unless a good opportunity presented itself. LinkedIn probably wouldn’t yield much in the way of offers but that wasn’t the point. Facebook tied with Instagram for the most replies, Twitter not far behind. That didn’t even cover the phone calls, texts, and emailshe’d gotten, everyone wanting to know what the big secret was. A classic move on his part - stir interest in himself by telling everyone to ignore him for now. A tried and true tactic with the people he dealt with on the regular and would get mouths blabbing about his business. Hopefully that would also stir up old shit but he wasn’t going to count on it.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Interestingly enough, in the days that followed after his sabotage attempt and Marta’s visit, Joni increasingly attempted to contact him via every method possible. Ransom honestly expected her to show up unannounced one day to rail at him in person. It seemed she wanted to know what Harlan had to talk to Ransom about the night of the birthday party. He was sure she got nowhere with Walt if she even tried to contact him. Joni probably had, in full freak out mode and expanding her crazy to everyone else. Meg got lucky, inheriting mostly Thrombey genetics and having tons of access to weed to balance out the Joni effect.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Filling his time with exercise, mulling over possible actions and reactions from his family concerning certain moves he could make, sometimes wasting an hour or so on Marta’s motivations to save Harlan. Ransom didn’t enjoy the solitude so much, he preferred to be in the city and working people. Easy enough to make quick cash out drinking and out playing the idiots that made these same mistakes so many times before. Finding new morons to beat at pool or darts was always a treat, especially when they got pissed and tried to beat up the ‘pretty city boy.’ Those were some of the best nights. He figured out his magic touch for games of all kinds, quick to pick up on cons, and get high as a motherfucking senator’s socks and party hard.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Thrill of the game had to be his only high these days - last time he got truly fucked up he’d had the scare of his life, nearly killing Linda and Dick in a car accident. Lucky for him they mutually agreed so long as he stayed clean, for real, there would be no further consequences to that action. God, Dick had actually been frightening for once, Ransom could never remember his sperm donor being so horrified to see him in the car and so pissed. And he didn’t want to <em>actually </em>kill them, he supposed, they couldn’t touch him any more after all.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Frantic knocking sounded from downstairs, so he got up and headed downstairs. A glance out the windows on the way down identified Joni’s car, and he smiled at his correct deduction of her behavior.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">A glance down told him he’s dressed appropriately for what should be an interesting conversation.</p><p class="p1"><br/>The knocking continued until he opened the door in his usual abrupt manner and scared the shit out of his visitor. She jerked her raised hand back and compulsively brushed at the bangs around her face.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Thank God, I thought you had died out here.” Pushing her way in through the space between his shoulders and the doorjamb, Joni did what she always did best.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom rolled his eyes and smirked out the door to himself.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“All your cryptic posts are driving people <em>nuts.</em> You’re such a schemer, Ransom, what are you up to?” The sentence rapid-fired out of her mouth as he sat her purse on his coffee table and tapped at her phone while sitting on the arm of his chair.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">The sarcastic comment rolled out easily, “I’m doing well Joni, and how are you?”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">She flapped one hand at him as she continued to tap with the other. He couldn’t tell what she was doing, the screen tilted up so that it would be super obvious if he tried to look.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“No one has seen you since Harlan’s party and your shouting match. And then these posts, and you know your Dad is worried absolutely <em>sick</em> about you right now. Linda too of course, in her way.” Words that used to wound him now felt as soft as dandelion fluff to his ears. “But really, I think Harlan is starting to struggle a bit, don’t you?” She glanced up at him through her lashes, then tucked her phone in her trendy jacket pocket. “He’s got himself all worked up over some accounting error that I can’t figure out, I told him I’d have my accountant take another look at it but he’s all in a tizzy about it.” She stood and paced around the living room, touching what little decoration he kept in here as she spoke and glanced his way, “As if I know where all these number issues come from, it’s not part of my skill set. You know I only work with my talents, not waste time on my weak points.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">She continued to babble on about her bullshit company and he listened intently to her in the way that mattered. Joni stared at him through her hair, peeked under her arm and over her shoulder, glanced sideways as she walked past, endlessly eyeballing him. It was as if seeing him in a rare under-dressed moment in just a thin sleeveless undershirt and plaid Gucci joggers had somehow magnetized her gaze to him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">What no one else really knew, and Ransom enjoys keeping to himself, is how desperate for him Joni really is. A younger Hugh instantly attracted Joni when Neil brought her around. It made sense, in a way, as all the Thrombey men had blue eyes, fair complexions, and were generally ‘tall dark and handsome’ as they say. To Joni, Neil was the meal ticket and Hugh the illicit dessert. He was able to use this to advantage so long as he worked carefully in the early days and after Neil’s death it was even easier to pull her strings. Today, skin on show that she didn’t see so often now that they were older, must be like a feast to her starved libido.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Oh yes, he knew a lot about how empty her bed generally is, Joni can’t stop dropping hints about how ‘lonely’ she can be with Neil gone. Especially when she’s drunk and practically pouring herself into his lap. There was that handjob once as well, and to his knowledge that little string still had a lot of pull left if he ever needed it.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“…so Harlan deciding to cut off Meg’s tuition money is just <em>insane, </em>y’know? Like, I can totally pay it as soon as FLAM gets off the ground but it takes a little bit of time for these things to blow up. And with the…”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom caught the tidbit he wanted and immediately tuned out the rest of the blather after it. Harlan <em>had</em> cut off Joni too, which meant Meg as well. Neil’s life insurance was enough to live off of, and the rest of his inheritance meant Joni and Meg could have lived comfortably the rest of their lives.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Unless Joni didn’t have that money any more.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He always suspected she’d dwindled the money away and was somehow keeping herself afloat. Best guess had always been female scams and boyfriends, despite her complaints about her cold sheets. After all, she didn’t exactly marry Neil due to her undying love for him. But this, this meant that she was probably keeping herself afloat by skimming money from Harlan and he’d found out and cut off the pipeline. How she’d pulled it off this long had more to do with the old man’s benign negligence than Joni’s cleverness.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Without warning, Joni touched his bare arm from where she stood to his left, stroking from his shoulder all the way to his wrist and dropping off. His skin crawled in its wake.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“I know things have been hard for you too.” There she went again, trying to sexily eyeball him under over-darkened eyelashes and reel him in.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Not so bad. Harlan and I had words, but he said some things that weren’t so awful.” He decided to play the middle road to see where she took this.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Of course, he’s not stupid, just a little confused sometimes and stubborn enough that it’s a pain to set him straight.” Her smile nearly blinded due to how white she kept her teeth, “I know you’re one of his favorites, and if not you surely you can see if your mom can talk some sense into him.” Again, with the touching, her fingers trying to work their way into holding his hand. He casually crossed his arms again to prevent this.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“I don’t know what exactly is going on with him right now. But I’m sure it’ll straighten itself out, you know how he gets around birthdays.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure, but it wouldn’t hurt to nudge things along would it? I just don’t want anything to interrupt Meg’s studies, she’s been working so hard, and I know how he can drag along sometimes when he gets this way.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom’s nose twitched as she closed in and came face-to-face with him. Those goddamn heels on her shoes made her just his height.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“Especially since he’s been spending so much time alone with the help. Fran isn’t so bad, but that nurse, well…” She exhaled the last word into his ear as she touched his forearms and tried to gently urge them apart.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Sweat dripped down his back as he let both arms slowly drop, and she pressed her front to him and breathed damply into his ear. He could feel her heart beat through both their chests and the point of her knees against him.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">“We just don’t know what exactly they do all day, do we? She seems nice and all, but Harlan spends most of his time with her these days. A little change of scenery and pace could help his frame of mind quite a bit. For both of us, I’m sure.”</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Her lips were sticky with product, he could smell the makeup on her and some undoubtedly expensive perfume that he was sure she overdid this morning. A tickle in his armpit made him want to scratch but he couldn’t even twitch. Those sticky, sweet, blush tinged lips roamed across his bare cheek and met his own lips. Joni pursed them against him, no moisture between pairs, until her tongue invaded his mouth and took reconnaissance.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom blinked as his mouth started to respond, blinked again as he petted against Joni’s shoulders and gently turned her down. Something something getting right in his own head something. Change is inevitable but he was still the same old asshole she loved, grin secretively with her, a brush of fingers against her petite bust and a discrete pat on her ass as she’s escorted out the door.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Blink. Blink. Door closed in front of him, no sign of Joni or her car in the driveway. His lips felt tacky and mouth cottony, he had to lick around and swallow to encourage saliva production. The gears in his mind started up, churning with the information gained that pretty much solidified his hypothesis of the situation. Harlan is trimming the fat - Ransom and Joni have been found wanting, Walt inevitably the same, Harlan’s children would have to grow up and finally take care of their own offspring.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">That only left a couple of loose threads to unravel. Not really necessary to some, but he couldn’t go through the rest of his life without knowing <em>why</em>.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>Why now? Where was all this tough love for everyone earlier? Where was this decision years ago? And why - why - why -</em>
</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Blink.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Blood in the sink.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Blink.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">He held his hand over the bathroom sink, and blood dripped off it. Pooled at the bottom and slowly dribbled down the drain. Drip. Blink.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom looked up from the sink, not seeing himself but a mirror that had been shattered and many pieces had fallen out and onto the counter, into the sink and getting covered in blood drops.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Drip.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Ransom looked up again and stared at the mirror backing. He blinked and his eyes didn’t really <em>see </em>the backing, just some bottles clinking in his hand as he poured them out and refilled them. Poured them out and refilled them. Bottles clinking back into a bag, and as he blinked he put a new bottle into his pocket and zipped up the bag of other bottles and medical shit.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">Killing Harlan just seemed so reasonable at the time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>New tags are due to - an older female non-blood relative subtly forces herself on a younger, not a minor, male but sexual touching is only briefly mentioned and isn't detailed in the narrative. Some blood is mentioned due to an apparent self-injury.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Born To Lose</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey gang, I'm glad that some folks are enjoying this. Lots of bullshit going on in my life, but this little work in progress is still in my thoughts and being worked on. Thanks for hanging in there and having the courage to read a WIP!</p><p>Safety and Peace to all of you out there, it's a wild planet we live on and we've got to take care of each other AND ourselves. Just, maybe in the reverse order.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It took Ransom half a day to locate the tools required to take down the mirror in his bathroom and get it into the garbage. He cut his hands up, all superficial, and bandaged them as best he could before sweeping up the mess of glass and drywall to one side of the long counter. The maid would probably invoice him for hazard pay or some such  bull and bitch to her friends about the crazy guy in the woods. Maybe even compare him to his grandfather, ha.</p><p>A trail of debris led from his bathroom, down the stairs, and out to the bins where he’d trashed the mirror. Small pieces of glass picked up the light and winked at him cheekily from where they led to the rest of his mess.</p><p>He tried to run a hand through his hair but the tape and bandages got caught and instead he nearly scalped himself. Ransom cursed himself, the situation, and anything else that came immediately to mind as he carefully pulled strands from the terrible wrap job on his hands. He sat on the couch with his elbows on his thighs and hands splayed out palm up as best they could under the circumstances. The medical tape and gauze looked like a toddlers art project, knotted in sections and twisted up in others. He’d bled through in some spots. The pain wasn’t so bad, he barely felt the stings and soreness but everything reacted so slowly and dumb. No wonder he made such a mess getting it out the door.</p><p>The last time someone put a bandage on him had been after a party. He was probably sixteen or seventeen, those years were a bit messed up and he couldn’t keep them straight on a good day. All he knew for sure was at some point he’d ended up wandering in the woods and thinks he either hitched a ride or paid for a taxi since his memory clears up a bit at the old man’s mansion. He’s walking down the corridor, having climbed through the trick window, and goes to Nana’s room. She’d had a fall at some point, bruises peppering her delicate skin, and Ransom cried at seeing his Great Nana so bruised up because he knew she hated looking like that.</p><p>Great Nana Wanetta had tea with Ransom, sometimes often and sometimes not as her health and the families’ whims dictated. However, he knew Nana would have a small hard candy or a soft touch for him no matter the circumstance. He thinks sadly, stroking the near silk-soft flesh of her hand laying on the quilt of her bed, that part of why she was unfailingly kind to him is due to her shot memory and never being able to recall all of his problems. You can’t lecture someone for something you don’t even know they’ve done. Over and over again.</p><p>His memory goes fuzzy on how long he knelt by his great grandmother’s bed and wept and pet her arm. But at some point she lay a hand on his head and stroked his hair, querying, “Ransom?”</p><p>Looking up he sees that’s propped up a little on her pillows so that she can look down the bed where he huddled at her hip and right hand. She looks cozy in her many layers of flowered linen with the quilts keeping her snug in the bed. He wishes he could sleep with that kind of peace.</p><p>“What’s happened boy? Are your parents well?”</p><p>“I don’t have any parents,” he recalled saying.</p><p>“Maybe not the ones you want,” she wiped the bangs out of his eyes, longish and getting stuck in his eyelashes and tears, “but they are the ones you have.”</p><p>“I hate it here, Nana, I hate it!”</p><p>She shushed him, trying to sit up more, but he jumped up and gently urged her to lay down and sat closer to her so that she only had to turn slightly to her right. Their closeness meant Ransom could see her wrinkles and age spots, the gentle loss of hair in eyebrows and lashes, the delicacy of her skin. He wondered how Harlan wasn’t kinder to this beautiful mother of his that decided to remain with him come hell or high water because that’s what you did for family. Nana was the strongest and best of them all and no one cared or saw it, except for maybe selfish old Harlan.</p><p>“Oh fuck,” she said, making Ransom laugh wetly as he tried to wipe his face on his jacket sleeve. She’d noticed a long cut on his arm revealed by the scrunched up sleeve, and with her notice it suddenly hurt.</p><p>“Oh ow, ow,” he muttered, raising the sleeve and examining the new-old wound.</p><p>Nana Wanetta tried to help him take the jacket off while Ransom tried to keep pushing the sleeve up. It took them both a couple minutes to realize they were working at cross purposes and try to adjust to what the other was doing. After another couple of minutes of Nana calling him a <em>silly boy</em> and maybe a couple of <em>shits</em> thrown in for good measure, his jacket ended up on the floor and his arm in his great grandmother’s lap. The blood had clearly dried while he wore the light windbreaker (he thinks it was a Ralph Lauren because he remembered being all about them at the time) and smeared all in the vicinity of the slash from mid-forearm to outside of his elbow. What he didn’t realize at the time is that he could have lost use of his arm due to the closeness of the injury to nerves that ran through and around the elbow. Another lucky break he noticed only long after the fact and didn’t know how to be grateful for.</p><p>Nana used to be a nurse in the War, not that she talked about it much or Harlan at all. While she’d lost more than she could remember at this point, she knew to take care of her feckless great grandson and love him as she knew how. So while he abruptly morphed from the frightened and lonely child of earlier and became nasty in his hurt, even if only to others, she told him off for his rude comments and got him to fetch her supplies. Wanetta could barely shuffle around these days and the changing of the seasons already stole into the marrow of her to stiffen joints. By the time Ransom returned with a big white plastic box with the universal red cross on it she’d sorted out the chairs in her room for her make do infirmary.</p><p>Equal parts soothing and chastising, Wanetta cleaned up Ransom and then bandaged his hurt. He couldn’t say how he was injured or if there was a who involved that needed to be looked for. But he did tell her there had been a party and girls, and he probably did things he shouldn’t have. He thinks he cried too, all over his pants and then Nana’s handkerchief wiping at his face. Or maybe that was some other time?</p><p>Nana had seen him too, that night. Twice.</p><p>Ransom stands and decides to visit the old house, no matter if Harlan and his shadow were there or not. Marta couldn’t stop him but she might decide to be a bitch and try to horn in on the conversation he wants to have. And maybe he can drop some whispers in Harlan’s ear while he’s at it.</p><p>He looks down at the shit job he’s done with taking care of his injuries and decides that gloves are his best bet. Dressing himself is a little more complicated with his dumb fingers and hands, but the job is accomplished and he looks put-together as always. His leather gloves barely fit over the poor wrap-job and make driving rather difficult. He’s driven worse under more hazardous conditions and isn’t impressed at all when he manages to pull into the curved gravel driveway in front of the house. Just like always, he swans in with nary a knock or ring, and surprises Fran into dropping the duster she’s using on the pictures in the foyer.</p><p>“Hugh!” It sounds like a curse from her mouth and he ignores her, seeing that Harlan is in his office this morning.</p><p>“Pleasure as always, Grandfather,” he snarks as he pops in. </p><p>Harlan had looked up at the clatter and narrows his eyes at Ransom, giving him a thorough once-over. They haven’t seen each other since his birthday a couple weeks ago and Ransom knows he’s suspicious about his motives. All he offers back is a neutral facade for his grandfather to paint whatever picture he decides.</p><p>“Ransom,” Harlan acknowledges his grandson and leans back in his chair, setting down his pen. A glance at the desktop show a bunch of paperwork that appears to be research into another book.</p><p>“Just came to see Great Nana.”</p><p>Harlan nods, though the stern look on his face doesn’t dissolve, only becomes a little firmer.</p><p>“She’s out back with Marta, getting some sun and fresh air.”</p><p>Ransom nods and backs out of the door, but Harlan calls him back in with a, “One moment, please.”</p><p>He edges back through the doorway and does his best to not feel nervous. Grandfather always made him feel as if he stumbled somewhere or missed something, even when their relationship was somewhat good. And the last time he’d been asked for a moment, he’d been removed from the will. Gun shy didn’t even begin to explain.</p><p>“Have you heard from your mother recently?” Harlan inquires. Ransom is not sure where this is going, but shakes his head in the negative and waits for an explanation. “Your father?” Another, slower, shake of his head. “Hmm,”</p><p>After a minute of his grandfather appearing to wander off in his thoughts, he then looks at Ransom and states, “I told your mother that Richard has been cheating on her.”</p><p>Ransom thinks that Harlan is trying to surprise some sort of reaction from him. What kind of reaction, he doesn’t know, and doesn’t really care. He’s going to give an honest one as it’s the best answer he has anyways.</p><p>“Sounds about right, he’s always had too much time on his hands,” he replies, leaning against the doorjamb to show how little he cares about this news.</p><p>Harlan’s brows rise in clear surprise.</p><p>“Dear old Dad hasn’t toed the line for years, I’m surprised it took you this long to figure out. Mom has never wanted to look for that sort of thing, so I bet it was a real shock for her.” Ransom waits for a response, but his grandfather appears to be stunned with Ransom’s words. “There’s a lot about him you don’t know it seems like. Maybe you should dig a little deeper if you really want to know how she’s been.” At this point he can’t help but smile bitterly. “Like father like daughter in a lot of ways I guess.”</p><p>Standing straight again he gives the older man a nod of farewell and heads through the house to the back deck. Fran has disappeared, but he will probably still have to deal with Marta which is about what he expected. As he nears the back doors he sees Marta and Great Nana sitting at the table, a mug steaming in front of Nana and Marta cradling another one in her hands. There’s some crumbs on a plate in the center and he hopes that Marta was able to get Nana to eat something. He knows that Nana will die soon; she rarely eats, or sleeps, and her mind seems to be nothing but fog and quiet these days.</p><p>He opens the door and steps back outside. Nana had been bundled up for the spring chill, with knitted fingerless gloves over hands that sat quiet in her lap. Her eyes, so large through her glasses, fixed on him and he knew today is a clear day for her.</p><p>“Ransom, you came back,” she states in her croaky voice. A voice he remembers shouting for him to come in and eat when it was still soft.</p><p>“Of course I did Nana,” he says, ignoring Marta glaring at him not-so-subtly and pulling out a third chair on the other side of his great-grandmother. Ever so gently, he leans in and kisses her cool cheek before taking a seat. “Hope you don’t mind if I join you.” The not-a-question is more directed at the young woman in front of him than his family member, a courtesy he normally wouldn’t use for her but now would need to become part of his vocabulary.</p><p>“Not at all,” Marta answers, “We were just having a mid morning snack.”</p><p>He smiles not at all sincerely at her, and turns back to his Nana. Spurred on by helplessness in the face of her deepening mortality, Ransom lays his hands on the age spotted and arthritic ones of Wanetta and shares eye contact with her again. He has so much he wants to say to her, like the old old days before she could barely move and her back hunched into a question mark. He wants to lay his decisions at her feet and ask her where it all went wrong, but of course he couldn’t do that.</p><p>“What did you do?”</p><p>The words are on the tip of his tongue; Marta already knows and she would be struck dumb at him speaking of it to Nana. They are stuck there, trying to get past the roadblock of his self-preservation and something much deeper and far more terrifying.</p><p>“Nothing that hasn’t already been fixed,” he tells her, adding a small amount of pressure to the hands he cradled in a long lost gesture of affection. “I promise it’s okay.”</p><p>Wanetta blinks ever so slowly, and the faint birdsong isn’t enough to disguise the restless sounds of Marta in her own seat overhearing this conversation. He can <em>feel</em> her desire to probe deeper into their words, ask questions, but instead she holds her silence and waits. Abruptly he feels as if he’s walked into some sort of trap and instead of saying what he wants, he might end up saying what <em>they</em> want and he doesn’t know how to handle this possibility. Great Nana had always been an exploitable soft spot and he dreaded what she would pull from him in front of this interloper in their lives.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Ransom jerks back as if struck, Wanetta’s denial hitting him dead center.</p><p>He whispers, “No?”</p><p>“Tell me boy.” Her croak is as stern as it ever was when she caught him out. He then gasps as she squeezes his hands with what feels like all the strength left in her body. The pain comes next, his torn up skin crying in agony, and he jerks his hands away to cradle them close.</p><p>“Tell me,” she insists, and he looks back up to her, eyes intense behind those glasses with a glare making one of them disappear from view.</p><p>Ransom looks back down at the gloved mess he has and instead of words he uses actions</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Composure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>2 chapters in two days!! The secret is I actually had to split up this and the previous one. Glad I have the time to do this for y'all.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The leather painstakingly comes off and reveals the blotted and shoddy work he finished earlier. He shows them to her like a naughty schoolboy caught during class, admitting his guilt without words so he can’t hang himself further. A gasp is cut off almost as soon as it leaves a mouth and Ransom knows it’s Marta as Nana is only studying what he has decided to show her. She reaches up, hands delicately trembling, and plucks at loose gauze and medical tape, undoing in a minute what took him forever to cobble together.</p><p>Marta doesn’t restrain her shocked inhalation and immediately stands, metal chair forced off balance and onto the ground. Some of the slices pulled loose of their scabs, scabs stuck to the gauze and pulled off, it just looked like he stuck his hand in front of the meanest tomcat to exist and asked it to go to town.</p><p>Suddenly, the damn woman is at his side with a first aid kit and gently inspecting him. He thinks she’s talking to him but he can’t look away from his great grandmother. She’s crying, the tears leaking out of her watery blue eyes and following the lines of her wrinkles to drip onto her large coat. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Marta’s latex-covered fingers manipulate his own to examine the damage done.</p><p>“It is okay, Nana, just a flesh wound,” he jokes from far away, stuck in the tears he hasn’t seen in years.</p><p>“He really is okay, Wanetta,” Marta says from her position on his other side, though it sounds like it’s coming from in the house, or across the lawn, “all of this is superficial.”</p><p>He sees the gloved hands pull out items from the kit, open a disinfectant wipe, and when it touches his wounds he bites down on his lip until he can feel the skin wanting to split just like that of his hands. She’s efficient while working on him, touches firm but not harsh, quick without cutting corners. She takes small rectangles of clear plastic and uses them like stitches, pulling a couple of larger slices together. Then she adds some gauze and bandages first his left, then right hand leaving his fingers mobile. Her work is neat, worlds away from what he attempted, and despite the soreness and stinging they feel better for it.</p><p>Looking up, Ransom watches her clean up the detritus of her nursing and make sure the first aid kit is organized before closing it and going back into the house. This feels like relief to him, and he turns his attention back to Great Nana and reaches into her right coat pocket where he knows she keeps a handkerchief. As carefully as he can, Ransom dries her face and folds the damp piece of fabric before returning it to her pocket. He then takes her hands in his again and squeezes, a silent <em>I love you</em> that only they share.</p><p>Instead of what he wants to say, out comes, “It was just glass, I broke my mirror Nana. Had to get it out of the bathroom and into the trash before it got worse. I didn’t use, I swear.” Her head gently bobs in acknowledgement, only one more tear slipping out the corner of her eye and quickly descending. “I swear it.” He brings her hands up to his face and gently kisses the back, inhaling the smell of wool and the detergent that doesn’t cause her skin to break out in a rash.</p><p>Marta walks by him, the door snicking shut quietly as she goes to the chair she knocked over and rights it, sitting at the table once again. He figures she probably heard some of what he said, but doesn’t care in the moment. All he wants is his Nana to love and understand him. He wants to think she does, as her eyes slowly blink and then wander their surroundings.</p><p>“Shouldn’t you be off to school?”</p><p>Her query hits him where it hurts most, because he knows now that he has lost her again and their moment is over.</p><p>“No, Nana,” Hugh replies, whisper soft, her hearing isn’t damaged like everyone thinks. “No classes for me today. I just came by to see the most beautiful woman on the East Coast.” A tremulous smile dances across his lips before the attempt becomes too hard to hold. He sets her hands back in her lap and pats them one last time before replacing his gloves. If she saw his hands now, who knows what sort of reaction that could cause.</p><p>“How about we go inside now, eh?” Marta states, gathering up the still full mug in front of Wanetta and her own in one hand, then the plate in her other. “It’s getting chilly for me,” she comments, piling the items on a side table near the door and ushering Nana out of her chair and into the house.</p><p>He isn’t sure what she does from there, other than coming back to collect the crockery and probably take them to the kitchen despite being Fran’s job. Ransom sits in the weak sunshine, the fog having cleared the woods on the edge of the lawn and brightening up into a delightful spring morning. The birds are still twittering away in the trees, and he finally realizes that it’s so quiet because the damn dogs aren’t out. For a moment he ponders this, then decides it doesn’t matter and rubs at his aching temple.</p><p>“Why did you do that?”</p><p>Turning around, he sees Marta had crept back out. He shrugs her question off and remembers that she has thwarted him no matter how spontaneous his plan had been.</p><p>“You’re an asshole.”</p><p>Ransom barks out a laugh and stands, shaking out his long coat. So few call him an asshole to his face and he always enjoys hearing it straight.</p><p>He smiles as charmingly as he can and gives her a jaunty salute with his first two fingers, “Reporting for duty.”</p><p>She grimaces and tries to stare him down, those brown eyes of hers dark and forbidding like a cliff face. All flat surface with no handholds and death to any that fuck around.</p><p>“I’m not a doctor, but it looks like you punched a mirror.” She glances down at his now leather-clad fingers. Knuckles that were bruised and lacerated now cradled like a lover in tape and gauze. “Sometimes…” she trails off and he looks back at her, eyes narrowed, waiting for the judgement to fall as it always does.”</p><p>“Sometimes, the world is so hard that all we know to do is fight.”</p><p>Her words come slow and soft, it’s clear they are being carefully chosen though he’s not sure why.</p><p>“And sometimes, we end up fighting ourselves instead of the real problems.”</p><p>Ah, he sees it now, the savior complex, the nurse inside of her wanting to heal more than just flesh. Too bad there are no wounds on his insides that she can mend.</p><p>“That’s bullshit that people tell themselves when they don’t get what they want. I <em>always</em> get what I want.” Ransom stands, done with this visit before he really even arrived despite his own desires. “Always.” Instead of going back through the house he leaves the deck and circles back around to the driveway.</p><p>As he starts the car Ransom notices that Marta is standing on the front porch watching him. He acts as if he doesn’t care to notice her watching him and drives off in a spray of gravel as he does. The trip back is mindless, second nature, leaving his brain to wrestle with her words despite his attempts to brush them off. Ransom knows he doesn’t always get what he wants as it’s been made abundantly clear to him that he can never have what he really wants. Money, women, drugs, liquor, fast cars even, are all easier than what he wants and now those are closed off to him. He has a small amount of time to figure out income so he doesn’t end up like Joni, and maybe even Walt, now that they’re cut off.</p><p>Finding himself in his gym, Ransom strips down to his expensive compression underwear and begins to exercise. He’s always been able to rely on his body, partly due to how he’s kept it in shape, the other part because no one can take it from him. No woman can suck his soul out of his cock, no man can shove their cock so far into him to destroy that soul, and he can deny access whenever he chooses. What few scars that haven’t faded back into the paleness of his flesh are nothing more than reminders of when others tried to take that from him and he won.</p><p>Ransom gets up from the bench to add weights to the barbell above his head. They clank together like cell doors, but these doors keep him inside himself and in control. They keep others out. So he lays back down and un-racks the barbell, already feeling the strain of the added weight and relishing in it. This body is <em>his</em>, <em>he</em> owns it and works it, has let <em>his own</em> chest hair grow into a soft fuzz and descend into a neat line down his abdomen and into his waistband. <em>He</em> is the one that has honed the muscles into firmness and aesthetically pleasing shapes.</p><p>Once again, time has shifted and he finds himself in front of the mirrors, staring at his sweaty body and wondering.</p><p>
  <em>When will I get what I want?</em>
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